It’s been a productive month; I think the choice to reduce my blog check-ins is paying off. Traffic has only dropped off slightly, while my ability to produce new fiction has increased dramatically. Since my last post, I’ve added 8,428 words to my WIP. If I average 600 words per day through the end of March, I will finish my latest novel and be able to ship it off to my editor with plenty of time to manage a May release for Team Alpha. I’m excited to share this opening to a space opera series with the world… even if there is increasing evidence from such hallowed sources as Courtney Milan and Nora Roberts that plagiarists, scammers, and scummy people (book stuffers) have joined the Amazon party and make it increasingly difficult for original fiction to find its audience.

I’m blessed that I have a day job that allows me the luxury of pursuing my creative vision without having to worry too much whether it will ever pay off in terms of sales that (in an ideal world) would offset the costs of bringing quality content to market. In other words, I can subsidize myself–a rare position in the writing world. This may not always be the case, so I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

In some ways, my efforts are also a nod at the generations of female researchers whose names were hidden in notes of thanks rather than being given the authorial credit they would have earned in current practice. The rather odd flip side to that outdated practice was an article that asked readers to carefully consider whether they should take a promotion. A strangely related piece about the harm to business productivity when companies force employees to give up their free time for one reason or another. The article argues strongly for the need to back off from the 72-hour workweek by focusing free time on creative pursuits.

In the realm of more scientific research, a pair of authors dug into the well-known doomsday population predictions from the UN (that by 2100 there will be 11 billion people on the planet, specifically), and found… that the basis for the prediction doesn’t hold water. Reading the article about their provocatively titled book Empty Planet leaned heavily on debunking “everybody knows” style thinking, and speculated that not only is the rate of urbanization but also the rate of female education are outstripping predictions–and both have a significant cooling effect on population growth. Aptly, then, the final article I’ll share this week from those I’ve read recently: An interview with David Dunning on the psychological effect that bears his name: The Dunning-Kruger effect. “Here are the classic findings from the original paper on the effect in graph form. The worst performers — those in the bottom and second quartile — grossly overestimated their ability (also note how the best performers underestimated it).”

In heading back to the writing trenches, I can leave you with the news that my beta readers approve of my direction to date, so I’ll tease you with the opening paragraphs of the story as it currently stands:

At least in space, the air doesn’t smell like despair. Her brother would thump her if he ever heard her say that out loud. Dr. Marina Spitzer grimaced as the g-forces accumulated and she tracked the gauges in front of her eyes.

“So far, we’re still in the green over here.” Three years into their mission and it was still strange to her to use the tongue switch to make the words print out in the chat screen for her team mates. Given the frequency of the slingshot maneuvers they were using to traverse deep space, though, the group couldn’t count on being able to use hand signals or even type on their keyboards.

But it was vital to make sure that the seedlings in her care made it to their destinations hale and hardy, else essential nutrition be missing for the entire team. And for the future of humanity.

Rina argued with her brother in absentia. She was definitely in space—even if she were in a spaceship on her way to the next in the string of planets that everyone left on Earth hoped would suit for starting over. And she imagined she could smell the greenery her dials and gauges were reporting on, as the oxygen they provided filtered throughout the ship.

She imagined him putting on his rebreather mask as he braved the pollution of nuclear winter on his daily trek between the home block bunker and the research institute in Stuttgart. She was out here for Karl as much as for humanity.

Until next time, remember to question your assumptions and live your life for yourself. The rest, as the great Alan Watts points out, is merely crazy-making noise.